When I was in college I lived in an old chapel with 4 or 5 friends. It had lovely big stained glass windows and a huge living room- the old nave- and a trio of tiny rooms off the nave that we repurposed as matchstick box sized bedrooms, and piled in. One of my girlfriends claimed the closet as her bedroom- her mattress filled it completely- and that was her room.
We had many, many dance parties. That’s what we did together, to get rid of our frenzied energy. We were still children needing recess and all that sitting in lecture halls required release. We’d have dance parties that lasted til 3 or 4 in the morning and it would often get super weird and definitely fucking abstract. The nave was our dance floor- we would clear the furniture and dance to the edges of the room. It wasn’t ecstatic dance- which I think of as deliberately draping yourself over a partner and then dragging yourself off of their body like melting honey. This was more angular. This was punk, and hip hop, and anything that could create a narrative drama that could serve as a backdrop for dancing as if you were in a play, on stage, recreating Shakespeare for the modern world.
I was young, and there was a question at the time (my question) of whether I was beautiful or not- so in those days there was a lot of floating outside of myself, wondering about myself, and pondering that question. And this question would sometimes show up on the dance floor- I’d be dancing from within but then find myself suddenly and rudely on the outside of my own experience. Was that a compelling movement? Did it make compositional sense?
I hated it- how much it depreciated the experience and limited my enjoyment. So I decided to change. When I found myself drifting, I’d shut my eyes, deliberately forget about who else was in the room, yank on the tethers, and stuff myself back in my body like dirty clothes in a hamper until I was dancing from the inside of myself again. Stay put!
Why this story, and why now? It keeps coming unbidden to my mind. I am back on that dance floor. Social media feels like a toxin. I find myself freezing up like a deer in headlights whenever I try to record myself painting. Was that a compelling gesture? Did it make compositional sense?
It’s winter. It’s cave-time. I am creating a new series of big abstracts- gestural, soft and evocative, to bring to a gallery in Santa Fe at the end of March. Last year was magpie mode, collecting images, learning from other painters- a chaotic classroom- a lot of outside-in. And my Tapestries series- incubated last year- is a distillation of that- weaving together all those disparate elements like I am sitting at a loom. It’s good work and I am excited about it. (You click this link to read more- that show will be happening this June in Boulder).
But this work is different. For this particular body of work I need to be a dancer again- intuitive and unself-conscious, on my lovely darkened stage, painting from the inside-out.
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